This month's deadly fire in Portland that killed six people has focused attention on code violations and safety issues in Portland's huge rental market.
With vacancy rates extremely low, more than half the city's residents are renters. And while many of them are probably happy with their landlords and their living conditions, others are not.
Tina lives in a subsidized two-bedroom apartment in Portland's Parkside district. "It's five rooms, two bedrooms," she says. "I live here with my daughter, her boyfriend and their baby."
During her four-and-a-half years here, Tina - who declined to give her last name - has had three landlords. I ask if she's had good relations with them. "No, it's pretty much been a battle getting anything fixed," she says.
"With all the landlords?" I ask.
"With all the landlords, yeah," she says.
Tina says she's complained about inadequate heating and the fact that the front door won't close properly. But her biggest concern is about fire safety.
"This is nice dark hallway - there was a smoke alarm," she says, as she walks through to the apartment's rear exit - the emergency escape route in case of a fire out front.
There's no lighting and the smoke detector has been disconnected for several months, she explains, because a clothes dryer kept setting it off. She says the landlord did replace it twice, but it kept going off, so he disconnected it and covered it up.
Tina says he's ignored repeated requests to fix the alarm and install lighting. She's frustrated, she says, because about four years ago - not long after she'd moved in - the smoke detector in question proved its worth when somebody set two fires in the hallway.
"I woke up at 2 o'clock in the morning - my son lived here - I woke up to my son knocking on my bedroom door as I'm hearing the smoke alarm, and he's like, 'Mom, why is that doing that?' " she says.
Thankfully, she says, occupants from all six units in the building evacuated safety, and no-one was hurt.
Tom Porter: "But if that happened now, you could maybe not be woken up because..."
Tina: "Exactly - because there's no smoke alarm out there. And it would probably catch quite a big fire before it alerted to anybody."
Tina pays $950 a month for her apartment, the same amount paid by young professionals Tom MacMillan and Crystal Cron. They live in a one-bedroom apartment in East Bayside. They only moved in in September, but they're moving out at the end of the month. The reason? Frustration with the landlord.
Heating's not included in the rent, and when they moved in, it wasn't working properly in the apartment. Crystal says this became a big problem when the weather got cold.
"It was freezing," she says. "It was, like, unbearable. We considered staying elsewhere because it was just so cold. I mean, the windows aren't sealed very well and the walls aren't insulated, so if the heat is not on, it's like an ice-box."
"Actually at one point, she told us that we should turn on the oven and use the oven as a heater," Tom MacMillan says.
"Yeah, she said, 'I'll pay, just use the oven as heating,' " Crystal says.
They declined to use the oven to stay warm out of concern for fire safety. Tom and Crystal called city code inspectors and say they were eventually informed that there was backup electrical heating. But Tom says this was still woefully inefficient.
Another concern, they say, has been the numerous water disconnection notices they've received because the landlord has not paid the bill. Throughout their time in the building, they describe their landlord's attitude as unhelpful.
"It wasn't just not positive, but it was almost like that we were causing problems, and like - I don't know - it was just always bothersome to her," Crystal says.
"It's stressful," Tom adds. "I mean, it wears on your mind, on relationships."
Tom and Crystal are hoping for better luck with their next landlord. Another Portland renter we with spoke doesn't know who his landlord is. James lives on the second floor of a late 19th century brownstone in Portland's fashionable West End. He and a roommate pay $1,200 a month for a two-bedroom apartment, which they've occupied for 18 months. The rent goes to a property management company, but James says the property managers themselves have not been pro-active.
"We've just noticed things slipping, and nobody really fixing them," he says.
The apartment is spacious and well lit, with wooden floors. James says he likes it here and doesn't want to leave. But he does wants things fixed - most notably the 18 by 14 inch hole above the dining room that first appeared about four months ago and has been getting bigger since. "At some point our entire dining room ceiling could - I mean chunks of it - could fall on your head and that wouldn't be good," he says.
James says this is the second hole in the ceiling: the first one appeared above the pantry about nine months ago. On top of this, a third one is starting to appear in the bathroom. When it rains heavily, he says, water drips into the apartment from several places - they had a bat come in once too. He says attempts to get the management company to fix the problem have been unsuccessful.
"It's frustrating," he says. "Every week you come home and you look at this hole in your ceiling, and you're like, 'I would like to get that fixed,' and you feel powerless to do so."
As for smoke alarms, there's just one for the whole apartment, located outside James' bedroom. Portland's fire code was updated in 2010 to require smoke alarms in every bedroom. However only properties built, or renovated, since then have to adhere to that.
So, despite the fact that none of the three apartments visited for this story had any working smoke detectors in any of the bedrooms, all three were considered code compliant. And that, say tenants, does little to make them feel safer.